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Though the tents were still going to be a large part of the circus atmosphere, we were going to make the main event rooms in the air conditioning.
Because holy hell, Texas heat was no joke.
“Are you even listening to me, darling?” he asked.
Darling.
That accent, saying that word? Whoa.
“Um, did you say something else?” I wondered.
He grunted. “No. But you didn’t answer my question. How badly do y’all need him?”
I answered instantly. “Well, I was already on the verge of firing him because he threw my costume at my face and hit me in the eyeball with a sequin. Pairing that with the way he kept grabbing my fat and telling me how awful it’d look in his costume, I’m not sure we need him that much. Only, I would ask that we do this throwing off the building thing when he’s done making all the costumes for the next month’s shows.”
The dimness between tents didn’t stop me from seeing the frown on his face.
He really didn’t like the guy, and I’d just fueled the fire.
Hoping to get him to change his course, I said, “What are you doing here?”
His eyes slowly went up and down the length of my body.
“Didn’t you just run?” he asked, without answering my question, might I add.
“Yes,” I said a tad bit defensively.
He wisely chose not to say anything, and instead said, “Which one are you?”
It took me a few moments to figure out where his brain was going with that question.
“Crimson,” I answered. “Your turn.”
His brows rose. “You don’t know?”
“If I knew I wouldn’t have asked,” I said. “And you still haven’t answered why you’re here.”
He slipped on his aviator sunglasses that hid his beautiful eyes and said, “Guess maybe you’ll need to do your research and find out.”
With that, he was gone.
The ass.
• • •
Still fuming a half hour later, I made my way into the offices, then into the conference room.
The problem with doing your research was that it was impossible when you had nothing more than a description of a man—which fit about half the male population in the country.
I’d even called Folsom, but the man had avoided every single security camera we had.
I couldn’t wait to tell Hannibal all about it.
In fact, it was on the tip of my tongue as I walked into the conference room.
“You know, Hannibal,” I said as I worked through a stack of paperwork—possible new hires—instead of looking at the occupants of the room. “You toot your own horn a lot, but I was just accosted in the middle of the dang circus by a man who wouldn’t share his name with me. And none of your security measures picked him…” I finally glanced up and froze. “Up.”
Why did I freeze in the entrance way of the conference room?
It wasn’t because of the piles and piles of food in the middle of the big, gaudy ass table Val had insisted we purchase. It wasn’t because of all the random people I didn’t know the names of also filling out the table.
No, it was due to the man who was sitting at the head of the conference table like he had every right in the world to be there. As if he owned said conference table.
The mystery man himself.
“What do you mean?” Hannibal asked, looking angry all of a sudden. “There are no holes whatsoever in my security. I can cover every square inch of this place.”
“Not every square inch,” I disagreed. “Because that man right there was just pinning me to the tent wall between red and blue, and when I had Folsom go back and find him, he was nowhere to be found. It didn’t even get me entering.”
Hannibal looked over at the mystery man and narrowed his eyes. “What did I tell you about messing with my security, Osborn?”
Osborn.
Was that his first or last name?
“And what is she talking about you accosting her?” Hannibal asked.
This Osborn character snorted. “I didn’t accost her. Nor did I do anything with your security.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You carrying a jammer?”
Osborn’s lips twitched. “Maybe.”
I had no clue what a jammer was, but I was interested in knowing.
“I feel like you two may already know each other,” Keene said as he leaned back in his chair, his gaze bouncing back and forth between the man and me. “Winston, this is my sister, Crimson. Crimson, this is Winston Osborn. He’s going to help us look into our father.”
Help us look into our father.
He was the expert?
I’d slept with the man who was going to be looking into every little aspect of my life? Wonderful.
He looked at me with a smug expression on his face, and I wanted to punch him in the throat.
I crossed my arms over my chest, forgetting about the papers in my hand, and ended up crushing them.
